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Formula Student at the Hockenheimring

Seven SKF Teams in the TOP 10

The winning student and his car

At the tenth anniversary of Formula Student Germany at the Hockenheimring the SKF supported teams had an excellent cut: Among 110 racing teams from 32 countries with around 3,600 participants, seven of the “SKF Teams” landed in the top 10. Those were within the Formula Student Combustion (FSC) the teams of TU Graz (Rank 4), University of Hertfordshire (Rank 6) and UAS Esslingen (Rank 8). In the Formula Student Electric (FSE) the SKF teams were even more successful: TU Delft, ETH Zurich and the University of Stuttgart shared the first three ranks, followed by the University of Bayreuth at rank 7.

Manfred E. Neubert, President of SKF GmbH, was quite enthusiastic at the Hockenheimring about the achievements of the young students: “It’s a great experience to witness first hand with how much enthusiasm, expertise and craftsmanship the young engineers are infected. It makes us proud that we’ve been able to contribute a small part as a main sponsor of Formula Student Germany in the past five years!

At the same time Neubert expressed his hope that an event like Formula Student Germany may inspire more young people for engineering: “Unfortunately, the shortage of engineers in our country continues to be a serious issue. According to many forecasts, the shortage in the future will be even worse. Therefore, it is even more important to promote SKF as a ‘Knowledge Engineering company’ with a long tradition in automotive and racing technology.”

As a special guest and keynote speaker SKF invited Dieter Gundel, the “electronic brain” of the Scuderia Ferrari. Thanks to his long career in the premier class of racing he was able to share his experience from which he amply divulged to the students of the “SKF teams”. It became clear what tiny differences in technology and (computer-simulated) strategy ultimately decide about victory or defeat in F1.

As Gundel was confronted with the fact that the self-made student car of the Greenteam Stuttgart recently accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in 1,779 seconds and is therefore faster than any of the cars in Formula 1, even the eloquent racing legend got a little stalled. After an unusual reluctance he finally announced: “According to the regulations of the FIA we cannot go faster,” said Gundel with a rather conspicuous wink. A greater expression of respect you cannot get from one of the most experienced minds in the entire Formula 1 Business as a junior engineer.

The world record in acceleration was recently broken by the Greenteam of the University Stuttgart. With 1,779 seconds accelerating from 0-100 km/h they were only six milliseconds faster than the former world record holder “Grimsel” from ETH Zurich.